Month: May 2012

Cut the Clutter and Streamline Your Writing, Part III

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This post, by Jodie Renner, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective blog and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

In Part I of this series, I gave some tips and examples for streamlining your writing to make your message more accessible and compelling. In Part II, we saw some specific examples of words and phrases to cut or reduce, to write more powerfully.

Here, we continue to explore ways to cut out the deadwood by avoiding repetitions and convoluted phrasing and going for clear, concise writing. Remember, it’s about direct communication and carrying your reader along with the story. Don’t muddle your message with a lot of extra words that just clutter up the sentence and hamper the free flow of ideas.

Avoid repetitions and redundancies in all their forms: two words meaning the same thing; saying something in five or six words when you can express it with one or two; and phrases or sentences that keep saying the same thing over and over in different ways.
 

Redundant Phrases. Avoid this kind of “repetitive redundancy”:

Repetitive phrase:                 Concise equivalent:

basic fundamentals                 fundamentals

honest truth                             truth

future plans                             plans

regular routine                         routine

past history                              history

final outcome                          outcome

extremely unique                     unique

repeat again                             repeat

totally unanimous                    unanimous

sudden impulse                       impulse

unexpected surprise                surprise

overused cliché                       cliché

What’s the problem? It’s obvious — the only kind of truth is honest truth, an impulse is sudden, repeat means to do something again, a surprise is by nature unexpected, and so on.

Cut out the deadwood, words that restate what is obvious by the rest of the sentence, words that just repeat what you’ve already said, words that are just adding clutter to your sentence. For example, the phrases in brackets are redundant here:

We passed an abandoned house [that nobody lived in] on a deserted street [with no one around].

At this [point in] time, [the truth is that] complaints are increasing [in number], but I don’t see that as a problem [to be solved].

Cluttering your sentences with too many unnecessary words can subliminally irritate your reader. Here a few examples of this “little word pile-up” tendency:

Instead of:                              Use:

in spite of the fact that            although

as a result of                            because

came in contact with                met

at this point in time                  now

during the time that                 while

he is a man who                        he

make use of                              use

with reference to                      about

Here are some examples, altered and disguised from my fiction editing, of trimming excess words:

Before: He was shooting off his mouth in the bar last night telling everybody that he was going to find the bastard that ratted on him.

After: He was shooting off his mouth in the bar last night about finding the bastard that ratted on him.

Before: Jennifer ran along the tunnel and up the stone steps to the walkway. She hesitated for only a moment at the top in order to jam the hand gun she was holding into her waistband and give her time to figure out where to run.

After: Jennifer ran along the tunnel and up the stone steps to the walkway. At the top, she stopped to jam the gun into her waistband and figure out where to run.

Finally, avoid convoluted phrasing and leave out unnecessary little details that just serve to distract the reader, who wonders for an instant why they’re there and if they’re significant:

Before: He had arrived at the coffee machine and was punching the buttons on its front with an outstretched index finger when a voice from behind him broke him away from his thoughts.

After: He was punching the buttons on the coffee machine when a voice behind him broke into his thoughts.

In the first example, we have way too much minute detail. What else would he be punching the buttons with besides his finger? And we don’t need to know which finger or that it’s outstretched. Everybody does it pretty much the same. Avoid having minute details like this that just clutter up your prose.

Before: The officer was indicating with a hand gesture a door that was behind and off to the right of McKay. Angular snarl stuck to his face, he swung his head around to look in the direction the other officer was pointing.

After: The officer gestured to a door behind McKay. Snarling, he turned to look behind him.

Before: “Bastards. Why am I always the last to know?” Pivoting, the detective walked in the direction of the station’s front desk with a purposeful, nearly aggressive, gait.  He shoved himself bodily through the swinging door and locked eye contact with the uniformed officer on reception duty.
 
After: “Bastards. Why am I always the last to know?” Pivoting, the detective marched toward the front desk. He slammed through the swinging door and glared at the officer on reception duty.

Copyright © Jodie Renner, May 2012

Also, see my article entitled “Clear, Concise, Powerful Nonfiction Writing.”

Next: Resist the Urge to Explain (RUE), and One Plus One Equals One-Half

Jodie Renner is a freelance editor specializing in thrillers, mysteries, and other crime fiction, as well as YA and historical fiction. Jodie’s craft of fiction articles appear here every second Monday, and on four other blogs once a month. For more info on Jodie’s editing services, check out her website.

Traditional Publishing And Self-Publishing Are Not Mutually Exclusive

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I’m getting a little weary of the hype that seems to suggest authors must either choose traditional or self-publishing, and that in no way could the two ever come together.

I also don’t like the polemic that has set authors against each other depending on how they choose to publish. I know this is an emotional topic and people have many different experiences of publishing in its myriad forms, but I wanted to put my thoughts out there and also see what you are thinking on the topic.

The choice of how to publish must be made per book.

I believe in the empowerment of the author to choose what is right for their book, and their business.

I also believe in the empowerment of the publisher to choose what is right for their business.

Some books are commercial enough that a publisher will pick it up because they believe it can make money for them. Some publishers may publish books because of love, not money but the bills still have to be paid.

Of course there are lots of great books that didn’t get picked up by the industry and many authors who feel disempowered by this rejection. Some authors have had bad experiences and have a justified grudge. But some books are just not right for traditional publishers at the time they were queried. The brilliant thing these days is that those books can be independently published by the author and do fantastically well. The author is empowered to publish.

But that doesn’t mean people should stop querying or aiming for a traditional deal if they want to.

I was on a panel on Radio Litopia the other night, discussing the London Book Fair and the launch of the Alliance of Independent Authors. In the chat room, it was suggested that all successful indies just wanted a book deal, and if they took it, they were somehow crossing a line. That they were betraying the indie ideal and proving that the establishment is all anybody wants.

But this clearly isn’t true either. There are successful indies accepting book deals, but they are plenty of authors leaving traditional to go indie, but who are not getting reported on.

So I think authors need to be empowered to consider their choices per book.

Is this book something a traditional publisher might be interested in?
Is this book something I want to relinquish control of?
Is this a project I prefer to have creative direction on?

Because most authors write more than one book.

Let’s face it. There’s so much creativity in all of us, and we have years of creation and publication ahead.

I am currently writing my 3rd novel in the ARKANE series, Exodus, and I have ideas for several stand-alone as well as more in this series. My current fiction is probably commercial enough for the traditional market, so I may decide to query it, although I am very happy with my indie sales so far.

I am also working on a re-release of my non-fiction book, How To Love Your Job…Or Get A New One (out in May). There is no way I would query that. Firstly because it is from my heart and the book I needed to write four years ago to change my life. The rewrite contains everything I have learned since then. Also, it’s not commercial enough for them and so wouldn’t be worth it. I believe in the book but I definitely want it to be published on my terms.

Lots of books written means lots of choice.

There are authors already managing the hybrid model.

Joe Konrath is always talked about as an example. He has books with Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer as well as his own indie books. Barry Eisler is another famous example, but I’d like to call out several other great authors who are rocking the hybrid model.

CJ Lyons has 16 novels and over the years has been with four different publishers for various books but after looking at her options, she decided to publish some books independently including some from her back-list that she had the rights back for. In September 2011 she hit the New York Times bestseller list with an indie book, Blind Faith, which was then sold to Minotaur. However, she continues to publish indie books, including recent success Bloodstained, currently rocking the Kindle charts at #60 overall as I write. [If you want to learn from CJ, check out these courses.]

Michael Wallace signed with Amazon’s Thomas & Mercer imprint in a 5 book deal for his awesome suspense thrillers set in a polygamist enclave. But he also has 8 more books that he has independently published. Michael writes about the importance of persistence in this article.

Recent news has Boyd Morrison dropped by his publisher in the US, but who still has traditional deals in other markets. So he will be in perhaps the unique position of publishing his next book independently in the US, but traditionally everywhere else. Now that is really the hybrid model!

As I was about to post this, uber-author Jackie Collins wrote a blog post about her decision to self-publish. Clearly she has a a lot of books with traditional publishing but in this case she says “you’ve always got to be thinking two steps ahead of the game.” There are a lot of great nuggets for authors in that post. Definitely go read it.

This is actually the model I would like to have. Some books with traditional publishers and others indie published. Isn’t that the best of both worlds?

I am more aware of thriller authors, since this is the genre I read and write in, but perhaps you have other examples of hybrid authors – or perhaps you are one. I’d love to know your thoughts on this, so please do leave a comment.

 

 

This is a reprint from Joanna Penn‘s The Creative Penn.

Are You Trying to Create an “Impossible” Book?

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I don’t know about you, but I hate disappointing people. Authors have something to say, a message to get out, or a story that has to be told. They may have products to sell, too, but it’s no small thing to put your name on a book and send it out into the world.

Publishing promises to fulfill the goals we have for our books. But it’s no fun sitting across from an author and listening to her describe the book she dreams of publishing, only to realize that she’s stumbled into one of the biggest traps for self-publishers.

What’s that trap? Trying to create an “impossible” book.

I know you’re wondering exactly what I mean by an “impossible” book, and I’ll get to that in a moment.

It seems like new technologies really make our imagination light up, often with fantastic ideas of how we can use these technologies to create great books.

But sometimes the ideas we come up with are actual fantasies, and that’s not so good.

These days we can create books lots of ways:

  • Print books at offset book printers
  • Upload book files to print on demand suppliers
  • Create ebooks for different ereaders

When looking at a book, most novice publishers can’t tell how it was produced, or why it was produced that way. That’s understandable; otherwise they wouldn’t be newbies, would they?

But here’s the problem. Sometimes we think we can take the technology of one method and use it to create books that are usually produced by a different method.

This is particularly true now, when books are easier and faster to publish than ever before. However, we haven’t repealed the laws of physics yet, or the laws of economics either.

Examples from Real Life

What’s an “impossible” book? Consider this statement from an author (and maybe you’ve had thoughts like this too):

“I want my book to be just like a regular book but I want a couple of color photos inside because that way the readers will be able to see the [scene/parts of the process/complex diagram/beautiful dress] exactly the way it’s supposed to be seen.”

Book printing technology won’t let you easily drop a couple of color photos into a black and white book. Of course you could do it, but you would end up with either bad color reproduction or an awkward and expensive book that no one would buy.

It’s just the nature of the printing methods we have available right now. The day may come when these books become possible, but it hasn’t arrived yet.

Books with good color reproduction are printed by specialty printers on paper designed for that purpose. These books are more expensive to produce, heavier, and don’t make particularly good reading if most of the book is text.

Here’s another example:

“My book needs to be done with print on demand because I can’t afford a print run, but it’s also important to me that it’s affordable, so I want to keep the price of my 480-page novel under $10.”

Well, I’d like that too, but it just can’t be done. If you wanted to sell this book through online retailers like Amazon, you’ll need to give up a discount that would result in you losing a dollar for each book sold.

When you see books like these in the stores and wonder why you can’t do that too, remember that the publisher may have printed 10,000, 20,000 or more copies in order to get the cost per book low enough to sell at that price. Are you going to do that? I hope not, it usually doesn’t work out well for self-publishers.

Book sales are as much about how your books are distributed as anything else. The distribution methods available to you—a small self-publisher—will mandate how your book is produced and priced, and how much you profit from it.

How about one more?

“My gallery opening isn’t for 2 more months, so I’d like to get my book of [photographs/artwork/children’s drawings/interior designs/fashion] designed and printed and available by then.”

The best choice for most self-publishers to create a full-color books is to print them in Asia. Through a good print broker you’ll be able to get prices you just can’t match here in the United States. But overseas book production, even after the book is completely finished at your end, will take 8 to 10 weeks (with no hiccups).

Even then, you may have to deal with getting your books through customs, transporting them to their final destination and making plans for distribution and fulfillment.

Creating Books That Sell

When you begin to see what’s involved in matching up the realities of production with the vision of self-publishers, you realize that getting all this straight is one of the first things you need to do if you’re considering publishing your own books.

The projects that seem to work best for self-publishers get it right. They:

  • Match up with what their potential readers look for in a book
  • Have distribution that reaches those readers
  • Are priced to get the best production for those readers within that distribution channel

When it all lines up your book can truly fulfill the goals you’ve set for it.

I’ve seen too many authors spend lots of money—I’m talking tens of thousands of dollars—on software, designs, cover images and all the other preparation books take, without realizing that the book they are creating may be unwise, unprofitable, or even “impossible.”

So do your planning wisely. If possible, talk to someone who has produced the kind of books you want to create, and who understands the realities of how books are made. They will give you some guidance early in your process.

You’ll be glad you did.

 

This is a cross-posting from Joel Friedlander‘s The Book Designer.

Why Everyone in Publishing–Authors, Agents, Publishers–Feels Disenfranchised

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This post, by Janet Kobobel Grant, origiinally appeared on the Books & Such Literary Agency blog on 5/14/12.

The other day I was talking with an editor about digital rights the publisher wanted back even though those rights had reverted to my client. I was surprised to hear her say: “We have ended up promoting authors’ books that are published by other publishers when we offered titles for free. That offer cost us, but other publishers benefited.”

I found myself thinking: “Welcome to the new world of publishing. Why are you surprised by that?” Neat lines of loyalty to publishers have melted away. But even so, doesn’t it benefit each publisher if all of an author’s titles sell well? When the water rises, it raises the entire boat. Yet the editor clearly thought of her publishing house as being in competition with other publishers, and she couldn’t imagine why she should help another publisher. That’s kind of an old-fashioned thought. While publishers might end up competing for a certain title or author, generally publishers are in competition with self-publishing, not each other. Which leads me to my next point of surprise in that conversation.

The editor went on to say that she found it disturbing that I had pointed out to her that my client could make more money by self-publishing her digital titles rather than returning them to the publisher, who intended to use those titles to promote my client’s other titles. In other words, those digital rights were useful to the publisher to make money off of other titles. But I have to weigh how much money my client could lose by reassigning those digital rights to the publisher. Why should the publisher be offended? It’s my job to think about all the angles of such a decision.

That exchange with the editor was one of several instances I’ve experienced that demonstrates publishers, agents, and authors all feel disenfranchised. The publishers feel wronged and wonder what happened to loyalty. The authors wonder what happened to publishers who worked hard and over the long-term to build careers. And agents wonder what happened to a world in which their major job was to place clients’ work with publishing houses.

That’s my point: Everyone feels disenfranchised and disrespected. Feelings run strong and deep on every side.

 

Read the rest of the post on the Books & Such Literary blog.

Hey All

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 Hi, I’m Tomara  Conner last summer I wrote a novel called "Nightwalkers" it’s like my baby and i’m finially ready to send her out into the cruel world.  I’m not the best at grammar and you can probably all see that by my novel but still…I try my hardest.  So if you guys don’t mind please check out my novel Nightwalkers.

Working with an Editor: Got My Edits Back. Now What?

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This post, by Cheri Lasota, originally appeared on her site on 7/15/10 and is reprinted here in its entirety with her permission.

I was about to email this information to one of my editing clients (yes, I edit fiction as well), but realized many writers out there could benefit from these tips. I’ve worked with dozens upon dozens of writers through the years, and I walk each of them through the best way to go about incorporating my comments and edits into their manuscripts ( MS). It can be overwhelming and sometimes even devastating for a writer to receive a manuscript back that looks like the editor dumped a can of red paint on it. I know. I’ve been on the receiving end for my own novel, Artemis Rising.

Here are the steps, in order, of how to go about receiving and revising your manuscript edit from an agent, editor, critique group, or kind friend with time on his or her hands.

Give yourself some peace and quiet.

Carve out a quiet block of time—several hours’ worth—to read through your MS. Try to clear your mind of distractions, upcoming appointments, the fight you had with your significant other. If you don’t have time to browse through slowly, then hold off until you do. The reason? If you’re rushed, you won’t be able to take anything in or think critically about it. The more you can retain in this first pass-​​through the better. In fact, it’s imperative. I’ve initially zoomed through edits from critique groups and failed to catch important points and suggestions. And worse, I’ve misread comments as snarky or unkind, when in truth, they were just specific and honest. When I cooled off and read back through, I would have to adjust my incorrect assumptions, which wasted my time and energy. In general, a critiquer or editor’s goal is to aid you in achieving your dream of publication. They wish to make your manuscript better, albeit through their own subjective viewpoint. But we’re all human, and sometimes editors/​critiquers aren’t as tactful as we could be. This is something, the writer must anticipate and eventually overlook. Why? Because you might miss the valuable advice buried under the snarkiness.

Don’t scan or skip.

Don’t skip ahead and scan through a document looking for how much the editor’s pen has bled onto the page. This is a self-​​defeating exercise from the beginning. Why? Because many of those comments might be praise. I often litter manuscripts with praise and encouragement. I do this because I know how important it is for writers to know when they are hitting the mark on their language, characterization, or plot.

Sit on the manuscript.

Yes, you heard me. Sit on your MS, like a chicken incubating an egg. That’s quite literally—okay, metaphorically—what you are doing. Incubating, concocting, inventing, spawning . . . That last one sounds wrong, doesn’t it? Anyhoo, let that sucker fester for a LONG time. I mean it. Don’t touch it after you’ve read all the edits and comments. I recommend two weeks at least. Perhaps a month. Here’s why: a writer’s natural response to criticism—either positive or negative—is to be defensive. That doesn’t make the writer childish or foolish. It is just a natural response, and waiting to dive into revisions cools off that natural tendency. If you wait for a long time before jumping in, you’ll be shocked at how different your response is to the edits than the first time around. I’m always surprised at the difference, and I’ve been at this for years.

Mull over your options.

During your "vacation" from the MS, start thinking about some of the major issues the editor mentioned. Allow yourself to come up with ideas for how to fix that character’s inconsistent personality or that plot hole in chapter nine. Maybe write some notes down to remember for later or freewrite possible avenues to explore. But again, don’t touch the MS. You’ll thank yourself later, when you’ve had time to let your anger or confusion cool and you begin to see the edits for the first time with clear, objective eyes.

Make a copy.

Whether you’re working with hard copy or electronic edits, you’ll want to start revising in a COPY of the manuscript the editor worked on. You want to preserve those original comments/​edits for future reference as well as keep your original draft intact in case you need to go back to it for any reason. So copy and rename that master file with the current day’s date. And every day you work on your edits, save the previous day’s draft, and start a new file with the current days’ date. This way, you’ll have a log of all edits you’ve ever done and when. Works brilliantly. I learned that trick from the president of a publishing house actually. And don’t worry about drafts filling up your hard drive. Your manuscript file is probably not even a megabyte, which is nothing compared to one music or photo file. Oh, yes . . . one more thing: BACK UP YOUR NOVEL FILES frequently. All of them. Most of us have lost drafts to laziness, stupidity, or busyness. Learn from those previous mistakes. Back up, even if you are just emailing the file to yourself. ‘Nuff said.

Turn your Track Changes ON!

After your "vacation," give yourself a long block of time to begin looking at your MS. Have a notepad by your computer or an open blank document up to write notes. Critical at this stage: turn your Track Changes on (in Microsoft Word). Yes, you heard me right. Any changes you make need to be tracked from here on out. Why? Because you are more likely to introduce errors into your manuscript at this stage than at any other. Yup. This is because despite your best efforts, you’ll start rushing through accepting edits, and you won’t pay attention to the fact that an extra space just slipped into that sentence or the first letter wasn’t capitalized, etc. This happens ALL the time. Trust me. I know.

Choose your direction.

This depends on the type of edit/​critique you’ve received, but usually you can separate your edit into the "easy stuff" and the "hard stuff." The easy stuff is straight copyediting issues: grammar, punctuation, etc. These are relatively quick fixes. I have to say that I heartily recommend this route. It will:

  • ease you into the revision process.
  • eliminate a lot of the editing marks that are riddling your document.
  • ensure that most of your grammatical problems are fixed before you press on to more difficult edits.

Conversely, you could go straight to the more time-​​consuming developmental or substantive edits. Bear in mind that this will save you some time if you end up cutting a lot of scenes from your manuscript. But again, I don’t recommend this route for the reasons I listed above.

Don’t just make changes. Learn!

If you’ve hired a professional editor to work on your manuscript, you’ve invested in that editor’s expertise and knowledge. To get the most from your investment, don’t just go through and blindly make changes. Understand why the editor has made these edits and suggestions. If you notice an editor has repeatedly added in paragraph breaks around blocks of dialogue, find out why. What is the general rule/​guideline? What is the goal? If you notice the editor has re-​​done your comma usage in a particular type of sentence construction, find out what you are doing wrong. Memorize that grammar rule. Look it up in the Chicago Manual of Style (the fiction writer’s style manual). Learn the rule and vow never to make that error again. This will aid you not only as you rewrite your current MS but in subsequent manuscripts as well.

Incorporate only what you feel will serve your story.

Remember that you don’t have to incorporate all suggestions. I personally break my edits into two categories:

  • Comment is optional/​recommended.
  • Ignore at your own risk.

My optional comments usually involve issues of language, style, voice, clarity, or sentence structure. I’ll suggest a change in these instances sometimes, but there are always other ways to smooth out structure, rhythm, or language in your own author’s voice. Often, I’ll set off these types of comments with a "consider this" or question mark to make its optional nature clear. For example, I might say: Delete this phrase to tighten the sentence structure here? Or: Consider expanding on your description of the MC to better illustrate her tendency toward self-​​deprecation. Other editors/​critiquers might use different methods, so ask them if you are unsure.

The key is to use both your head and your gut when making these decisions. If you feel a suggestion may compromise the overall plot or the characterization or the theme, etc., then put that comment on the back burner. You can always come back to it later or ignore it completely if you feel it doesn’t serve your story well.

WARNING: There is a big difference between deciding that a change isn’t right for your story and being too lazy to make the change. Confession: This is a problem for me personally as a writer. I’ll often see the merit in a critiquer’s suggestion, but due to lack of time or energy, I’ll put it aside and "conveniently" forget to go back to it. *blushes with shame* This is a bad practice for writers, considering that our ultimate goal is to better our books. And don’t forget that the critiquer took his or her valuable time to make the suggestion in the first place. So, don’t be lazy or use busyness as an excuse. Do the hard work—you won’t regret it.

Overhauling? Then get out of your MS.

If your editor has recommended doing major revisions to whole scenes or chapters, I highly recommend copying and pasting those scenes into a new document. Playing with ideas or major fixes outside of your master MS file accomplishes two things:

  • You eliminate the possibility of losing any valuable original material.
  • You allow yourself the freedom of exploring ideas and possibilities in a "throwaway" document.

Once you’ve rewritten a scene to your satisfaction, you’ll want to re-​​paste it into your master file and save the file again.

Take another vacation.

Once you’ve made (and tracked) all the edits you can bear to make without keeling over from exhaustion, then take another "vacation." Yes, you’ve earned it! But only a couple of days’ worth, because you’ve still got work to do on this draft. Once you’re back at it, go through the MS again and accept your tracked changes one by one. Make sure that you double check those edits before you accept them, to ensure that you aren’t introducing more errors. You’ve spent countless hours on spit-​​polishing your masterpiece; you don’t want to screw anything up at this point, eh?

Get to work!

All right, now that you know all my secrets for a proper revision, you’ve no more excuses. Get to work and get that manuscript out there already!

 

What Makes a Critic Tick? Connected Authors and the Determinants of Book Reviews

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A study of literary critics was recently conducted and the results have been posted at Harvard Business School’s The Working Knowledge journal.

Executive Summary:

The professional critic has long been heralded as the gold standard for evaluating products and services such as books, movies, and restaurants. Analyzing hundreds of book reviews from 40 different newspapers and magazines, Professor Michael Luca and coauthors Loretti Dobrescu and Alberto Motta investigate the determinants of professional reviews and then compare these to consumer reviews from Amazon.com.

Key concepts include:

  • The data suggest that media outlets do not simply seek to isolate high-quality books, but also to find books that are a good fit for their readers. This is a potential advantage for professional critics, one that cannot be easily replicated by consumer reviews.
  • Expert ratings are correlated with Amazon ratings, suggesting that experts and consumers tend to agree in aggregate about the quality of a book. However, there are systematic differences between these sets of reviews.
     
  • Relative to consumer reviews, professional critics are less favorable to first-time authors. This suggests that one potential advantage of consumer reviews is that they are quicker to identify new and unknown books.
     
  • Relative to consumer reviews, professional critics are more favorable to authors who have garnered other attention in the press (as measured by number of media mentions outside of the review) and who have won book prizes.
 

Author Abstract

This paper investigates the determinants of expert reviews in the book industry. Reviews are determined not only by the quality of the product, but also by the incentives of the media outlet providing the review. For example, a media outlet may have the incentive to provide favorable coverage to certain authors or to slant reviews toward the horizontal preferences of certain readers.

Empirically, we find that an author’s connection to the media outlet is related to the outcome of the review decision. When a book’s author also writes for a media outlet, that outlet is 25% more likely to review the book relative to other media outlets, and the resulting ratings are roughly 5% higher. Prima facie, it is unclear whether media outlets are favoring their own authors because these are the authors that their readers prefer or simply because they are trying to collude.

We provide a test to distinguish between these two potential mechanisms, and present evidence that this is because of tastes rather than collusion — the effect of connections is present both for authors who began writing for a media outlet before and after the book release. We then investigate other determinants of expert reviews. Relative to consumer reviews, we find that professional critics are less favorable to first time authors and more favorable to authors who have garnered other attention in the press (as measured by number of media mentions outside of the review) and who have won book prizes.

 

Read the full text of the paper (in pdf format) here.

Self-Promotion Or, Warning: Being A Published Author Means You Are Entering A Whine-Free Zone.

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This post, by Colleen Lindsay, originally appeared on The Swivet on 2/4/09.

A recent comment on a writing blog caused me to start mumbling under my breath and making impolite mutterings to my cats and furniture. (This is what one does when one is housebound and sick for a long time.) I’m paraphrasing the commenter here, who said something to the effect that s/he missed the good old days of publishing, when writers only had to write the books and publishers marketed them all, but alas, writers no longer live in that world and now we are (wailing and gnashing of teeth!) forced to (horrors!) self-promote!!!

I have news for you: We have never lived in that fantasy world.

Not ever.

Most authors have been responsible for the bulk of their own self-promotion all the way back to Dickens’ time. (And Dickens was a master of self-promotion, by the way.) Because publishing brings in such a narrow margin of profit, publishers have always relegated the bulk of their promotional resources to those books that they see as their best opportunity for a return on their investment. And the more money they have invested in the manuscript, the more they’re going to want to promote that manuscript. It’s pretty simple math.

But authors have always been expected to do their own self-promotion and outreach. It’s in every author questionnaire ever sent to an author by a publisher. It’s in every conversation an agent has with a potential new client (and if it isn’t, it should be): What will you be doing to aid in the promotional efforts for your own work?

It just seems that today I’m hearing writers complain about it a lot more.

Well, stop whining and suck it up. Every job comes with unpleasant tasks, even being a published writer.

Read the rest of the post on The Swivet.

What Will Become of the Book?

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This guest post, by Charles Rosenberg, originally appeared on Two Ends of the Pen on 5/4/12.

In April, I attended both the IBPA "Publishing University" in San Francisco and the 2012 Left Coast Crime mystery fan conference in Sacramento. In both places, I heard many people ask, in one way or another, "What will become of the book?" They were talking about the book as print on paper.

That question contains within it both an assumption and a lament. The assumption is that we have, up until now, all shared a common understanding of what is meant by the word "book." The implied lament in the question is the emotional equivalent of asking: What will become of Grandma now that we’ve left her by the side of the road and driven away?"

In this blog post, I want to explore both the rapidly changing meaning of "book" and the feeling of lament about those changes.

What Is a "Book," Exactly?

In the long-ago year of 2006, before the first Kindle was released, we had, I think, a culture-wide understanding of what the English word "book" meant when applied to a physical object. It meant text or pictures on sheets of paper, the sheets bound together at one end, called the spine (usually stitched or glued, but sometimes bound in other ways), with a protective cover made of thicker paper, cardboard or some other material stronger than the sheets of paper within. There were indeed many subcategories of books — hardback books, paperback books, art books, comic books, graphical books, notebooks, workbooks, etc., etc. — but, one way or another, all *books. So if you said to someone in 2005, "I just read a great book," most people wouldn’t have bothered to ask what physical form the book took.

That was then.

Now, with the advent of the Kindle, the Nook, the iPad, the iPhone, and numerous other smart phones and tablets, the term "e-book" has arisen, which has begun to upend our more than one thousand year-old understanding of what the word "book" means in physical terms. Think about it: e-books are not made of paper and do not contain pages that are physically bound together with stitches or glue. If they have a cover, its function is not to use thicker/better/stronger digits to protect the text on the inside. Its function is more-or-less to announce the book. Kind of like a butler. Indeed, an e-book is not a physical object at all, although it is contained within one. Yet I don’t think many people would think of a Kindle or an iPad as a book.

As a result, the meaning of the word book has begun to change, to mean text and/or images of a certain length and format rather than a physical object. You can figure this out just by listening to people talk. You will not usually hear someone say: "I just read a great e-book." For an increasing number of people, whether a text was read in digital form or on paper has become a matter of indifference, and yet they still refer to having read a "book." Of course, someone listening to the statement may enquire if the book is available as an e-book. But the question may be generated as much by their "platform" reading preference or on their assumption that the e-book will be less expensive as by any desire to know how the reader accessed the book.

Is This Really Anything New?

From what I’ve read, change is nothing new for books.

Starting around 400 A.D., the bound book became dominant, at least in the West, over the scroll, which has receded into mainly ceremonial use (e.g., the Torah). The bound book had large advantages over the scroll: It was less expensive (you could write on both sides of the page), it was more easily stored and transported (try stacking scrolls), it had what we would today call "random access" (you could reach any page without unrolling), and it was harder to damage (covers really do protect). It was also easier to hide. This was apparently important to early Christian groups, who favored the book over the scroll.

 

Read the rest of the post on Two Ends of the Pen.

Is the Free Ride Really Over?

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This post, by Andrew E. Kaufman, originally appeared on the Crime Fiction Collective site and is reprinted here in its entirety with that site’s permission.

I’m hearing a lot of talk lately among authors that the Amazon Select program is losing steam and no longer spurring the kinds of sales it once did. Many are reporting diminished numbers and poor results after their free giveaways. Rumors are spreading from blog to blog that on May 1st, Amazon abruptly changed its algorithms (The “customers also bought” section) so that free books are now given only ten percent weight in the rankings, in effect making ten free downloads really only equal to one sale. Also, borrowed books supposedly no longer count as sales where rankings are concerned.

 
I don’t know if all this is true, but a lot of people seem  pretty upset. Authors are complaining that Amazon wants them to give away their books for free with no benefit to sales. They’re threatening to withdraw their work from KDP Select and upload them to Smashwords.  Others are trying to decide whether to stick it out with a wait-and-see attitude. 
 
Many have benefited greatly from the Select program. I am one of them. My sales are still going strong, and I haven’t seen the diminished numbers others are reporting. I feel fortunate for that, but my suspicion is that while the free promos may have given me a good bump at the outset, what’s happening now is something entirely different. I never stopped promoting once the giveaways ended, and I’ve never relied on the Select program to carry me forever. I’m not saying that others have; I’m simply recounting my own experience.
 
But in the back of my mind, I’ve always wondered just how long the Select Effect would last. When it began, it seemed like a mad free-for-all, literally, and suddenly the market was flooded with free books. It only seemed logical that eventually, consumers might feel overwhelmed by it all, that they would grow tired, and yes, that the value of e-books might become diluted. After all, there are so many books and so little time to read them all. There’s no telling how many free books are sitting on Kindles now—and even worse, how many of them will ever actually be read.
 

I’m not a gloom-and-doom person, and I suspect that even if my sales weren’t doing well, I wouldn’t be one of those complaining right now. I still choose to see the glass as half full. Many authors are forgetting that even if they give away a lot of books and don’t see an immediate boost in sales, those are seeds that have been planted, and they’re getting the benefit of gaining new readers they never had before. I’ve learned that in this business, too fast never lasts, and that slow and steady wins the race. It’s how I’ve built my audience over the years. Besides that, there’s still the Kindle Owners’ Lending Library, and at least for me, it’s been like having extra books up for sale—money in my pocket I wouldn’t normally have.

The thing is, I don’t think the Select program was ever intended to carry authors forever; I think it was intended to give them exposure, help get their books into new readers’ hands, and ultimately, help them grow their readerships, and I still think it’s doing that. What happens after is really up to the authors. It’s not Amazon’s job to do all the work so our books can sell—it’s ours—and it’s not much to ask if we meet them half way.

The truth is, the free ride really isn’t over because in fact, one was never offered.

 

An Open Letter to the DOJ from Someone Who Actually Cares About Writers (and Readers)

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This post, by David Gaughran, originally appeared on his Let’s Get Digital Site on 5/15/12.

 The leading literary agents’ organization – the Association of Authors’ Representatives (AAR) – penned an open letter to the Department of Justice (DOJ) opposing the terms of the settlement reached with three of the publishers named in the Agency price-fixing suit.

I won’t go into the details of how wrongheaded that letter was. It has already been systematically taken apart by Joe Konrath, Bob Mayer, and Dean Wesley Smith.

Also worth reading are Joe Konrath’s subsequent dismantling of another open letter to the DOJ written by Simon Lipskar (a board member of the AAR), as well as the comments made by Passive Guy on the same topic.

If you have any doubt whose side (most) agents and the AAR are on (clue: it’s not writers’), then you need to read this guest post by Ann Voss Peterson on her exploitative Harlequin contract, the subsequent reaction to Ann’s post by romance agent Scott Eagan (read the comments following that piece) and agent Steve Laube, as well as Joe Konrath’s filleting of the latter.

I have heard privately from one agent who is opposed to the AAR’s position, but I haven’t seen any public postings to that end. If they exist, please point me to them and I will amend the above characterization (but I fear I won’t have to).

* * *

Gail Hochman, the President of the AAR, sent a copy of that open letter mentioned at the top to all members of her organization, along with an accompanying note calling on her fellow agents to both write similar letters and encourage their clients (i.e. writers) to do likewise. Their explicit aim is to influence the judge presiding over the suit.

From Gail Hochman’s letter to AAR members:

The DOJ must read and report to the judge who must ultimately approve the settlement each communication it receives commenting on the proposed settlement. For that reason, in addition to the AAR’s letter we urge all AAR members to express their views on the settlement to the DOJ and we hope you will also urge your clients to do the same.

Your note might address whether you feel the settlement will foster competition and well-being in the literary marketplace, or the opposite. There is a time limit for such communications, so your messages should be sent as promptly as possible. (The address is on the AAR’s letter.)

We believe it is tremendously important that we all be heard on this most significant issue. We believe the more letters from publishing professionals that are received, the better the chance of affecting the judge’s final decision.

While I’m not a member of the AAR, I suppose I am a “publishing professional” in one sense. I will gladly answer Gail Hochman’s call. A copy of the letter I’m sending on Thursday morning is below. If anyone wants to add their name to it, please make a note in the comments (or email me privately at david dot gaughran at gmail dot com) and I will include your name.

It would be great if there were other writers’ names to add, but make no mistake, this isn’t a petition. If mine is the only name at the bottom, I’m sending it anyway.

Some authors may be reticent. I can understand that. Many of you may be seeking representation or a publishing deal and may be afraid of stepping on toes. That’s fine. I don’t really care about that stuff so I’m happy to take any potential flak.

 

Read the rest of the post, which contains Gaughran’s letter to the DoJ, on Let’s Get Digital.

TRUE HERO I never met Ghandi, but I met Ian

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 Just posted a new Blog Article

HERO I never met Ghandi, but I met Ian

tinyurl.com/cgalzer 

Have fun

Mikel

How Amanda Palmer Built An Army Of Supporters: Connecting Each And Every Day, Person By Person

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This post originally appeared on techdirt on 5/4/12.

Following the massive success of her Kickstarter experiment, we asked Amanda Palmer if she wanted to write a quick guest post about why she thought the offering was so successful. Here’s what came back, including a bonus bit from Sean Francis, who has helped Amanda for years on the tech/social side of things.

 

There’s a great story about how bamboo grows. A farmer plants a bamboo shoot underground, and waters and tends it for about three years. Nothing grows that’s visible, but the farmer trots out there, tending to this invisible thing with a certain amount of faith that things are going to work out. When the bamboo finally appears above ground, it can shoot up to thirty feet in a month. This is like my kickstarter campaign. The numbers aren’t shocking to me, not at all. I set the goal for the kickstarter at $100,000 hoping we’d make it quickly, and hoping we’d surpass it by a long-shot.

I’ve been tending this bamboo forest of fans for years and years, ever since leaving roadrunner records in 2009. Every person I talk to at a signing, every exchange I have online (sometimes dozens a day), every random music video or art gallery link sent to me by a fan that i curiously follow, every strange bed I’ve crashed on…all of that real human connecting has led to this moment, where I came back around, asking for direct help with a record. Asking EVERYBODY. Asking my poor fans to give a dollar, or if nothing else, to spread the link; asking my rich fans to loan me money at whatever level they can afford to miss it for a while.

And they help because they know I’m good for it. Because they KNOW me.

I’ve seen people complaining that this is easy for me to do because I got my start on a major label. It’s totally true that the label helped me and my band get known. But after that, the future was up to me. It bought me nothing but a headstart, and I used it. I could have stopped working hard and connecting in 2009. If I’d done that, and then popped up out of nowhere in 2012 to kickstart a solo record in 2012, my album would probably get funded to the tune of $10k…if I was lucky. There are huge ex-major label artists (pointless to name names) who have tried the crowd-funding method and failed dramatically, mostly because they didn’t have the online relationship with their fans to rely on. And vice versa: plenty of young upstarts with a small but devoted fanbase have kicked ass using crowdfunding, because they’ve taken a hands-on approach online and at shows, and have been close and connected with their fans ALL THIS TIME, while nobody was caring or watching.

 

Read the rest of the post on techdirt. 

When Publishing Goes Wrong…Starring Undead Press

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This post, by Mandy DeGeit, originally appeared on her blog on 5/14/12.

You all know I’ve been ranting about my first ever publication coming out for the last little while… “She makes me smile” was picked up by Undead Press (Anthony Giangregorio) to be published in their anthology called Cavalcade of Terror and the book was released May 1st 2012.

[Publetariat Editor’s note: strong language after the jump]

I waited… and waited… I was SO excited to see my story and name in print.

One of my friends even went as far as to pay 40$ to Expresspost me a copy of Cavalcade, I waited around two days for the delivery. (Apparently I’m dealing with a buzzer issue here at the house.)

It finally came in and believe me, I didn’t waste any time ripping into the package…

FLIP, FLIP, FLIP… Find the Table of Contents.
Scan down…

…and my heart sank.

Wtf? :( There’s a spelling mistake in the title of my story. *(Not from my submission however… They changed it to wrong.)

“She Make’s Me Smile” by Mandy J. De Geit

Well that made me sad, but okay the Mandy part is kinda cool. Let’s see the story itself…

ARGH!!! Same mistake on the title page. Fack, She Make is Me Smile… Really? Oh well… Read on.

… … …
..Wait… What?
Read read read… WTF? WHO THE HELL? (Run to computer and load up the submitted file with great difficulty, cause your breathing is laboured from a really tight chest, your hands are shaking to the point you can hardly type and you can hardly see the screen cause you’re about to lose your shit waterworks wise… and you NEVER do that…)

Fucking Bastards! They changed my story without telling me.

Let’s see: They turned a non-gendered character into a boy, they named the best friend, they created a memory for the main character about animal abuse. They added a suggestion of rape at the end… I feel like they ruined the suspense in the story. I don’t know what else, I haven’t even read the whole thing through yet because it makes me SOO FREAKING ANGRY!!! *(I’m angry now… just talking about it riles me up. EFFIN GRRRRRR! I could totally kill someone with a paperback, I wonder if that’s been done…) Grrr… I hate anger.

… anyways…
THEY SHOULD’VE ASKED!!!
(I’d have said NO, give me my story back, because you can’t spell and your story makes no sense, but that’s neither here nor there.)

The story didn’t pay anything, not even a contributor’s copy, but still I signed the contract (which said “EDIT” not “revamp”) and let them publish my story. I was rushing on the fact that I was actually going to be a published author.

 

Read the rest of the post on Mandy DeGeit’s blog.

How Do Daily Ebooks Sold Figure into Amazon and Barnes and Noble Sales Rankings? Theresa Ragan Has The Scoop!

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This post, by D.D. Scott and Theresa Ragan originally appeared on The Writer’s Guide to E-Publishing on 5/14/12.

Happy Monday, WG2E-Land!!!

Gosh, I sooo wish I’d come across this superfab scoop when I’d first started out in Indie Epublishing, but since I came across it this past week, I just had to share it with y’all!!!

A huge shout-out and thank you to Bestselling Amazon Author…and now Amazon Thomas and Mercer Author too

Theresa Ragan

for this beyond valuable info!!!

We featured Theresa in a fabulous Reader2Author Interview on yesterday’s RG2E, so check it out here:

http://bit.ly/JqxSxV

And while I was getting that post ready to go, I browsed Theresa’s website and found that she had some terrific Real Numbers on how Daily Ebook Sales figure into Amazon Sales Rankings.

Here’s what she has on her Sales Ranking Chart Page:

The numbers below are based on MY experiences… I’m sure you can find other authors whose numbers are different from these…but the following s/b pretty darn close. The whole idea is to give you an approximate number of books you would need to hit the OVERALL Kindle List only.

The rankings are interesting to look at if you have a book out there and you are hoping to, for example as of January 2012, get on the Top 100 Romantic Suspense Bestsellers List on Amazon. If I look at the Romantic Suspense Kindle Ebook List and click on the book title of #99 or #100 and that book has a Bestsellers Rank of 3,865 (#99) and 3,875 (#100), then I know I need a 3,875 or better to get on that list. As of 1/7/12 Finding Kate Huntley is #18 with an overall ranking of 446 and selling over 125 books a day. ABDUCTED is #40 with an overall ranking of 1,087 and selling over 80 books a day. And Dead Weight is #69 with an overall ranking of 2,182 and selling about 65 books a day.

Amazon Bestsellers Rank is the number you find beneath the Product Description. Every book on Amazon has an Amazon Bestsellers Rank. Click on any title and then scroll down until you see it.

January 2012 update: rankings have changed substantially in the past few months and I’ve made changes to reflect rankings and sales according to MY books.

 

Read the rest of the post on The Writer’s Guide to E-Publishing.